Memories under the starlight
by Pinkblurlover
Summary: A Yuokka oneshot. The final moments of Yue.


Disclaimer: I do not own A:TLA, it's characters or it's story.

**Memories under the starlight**

The days went by so fast, my feelings even more. The faces around me are so sad, darkness marks them. I look at the face that has given me so much joy in the last few days. Memories flood my mind as I mesmerize his features.

_The day we met, I passed him by while he was heading to the palace. To him it might have looked as if I didn't see him, but the opposite was the truth. I was not supposed to interact with the people in the city. More lost time caused by tradition. How carefree he seemed that evening, awkwardness covering up genuine interest. _

_Nobody talked to me as he did, as a common person, taking aside all formalities. Although I realize that it might've been because he didn't know, it comforted me. I didn't give him an answer that night, I couldn't._

_He followed me the next day, thinking I wouldn't notice. I nearly called out to him, inappropriate as it may have been, had he not started talking. I liked him, I really did, and not knowing what hurt I would bring him in the end, I asked him to meet me._

The lack of moonlight hurts me; and concentrating on the events around me is hard. I try once more to focus on the situation, the sad faces on the people around, on the person I love. And that is what it was, even in such short a time; I had grown to love him, even if I didn't know yet..

_That night I came to him. He said all the right things, gave me so much joy and so much sadness at once. I couldn't lie to him anymore, I had to tell him. I was engaged. His face still haunts me sometimes, as sad as it is now. I just wanted to take it away, hold him until it turned happy again, but I couldn't. _

_He didn't stop seeing me, although we both knew it was the right thing. We said we were friends and nothing more, fooling none but the guards assigned to protect me. The joy I had hearing about his life, the southern watertribe and just walking besides him. We walked through the city, the wall and the outskirts. We both enjoyed this for one reason, we could be alone. His face was always looking at me, sadness in his eyes at first, a mask of happiness in the end. _

As I think of those days, the happiest days of my life, I knew he had come to the same conclusion in his mind, but was unable to utter the words. Knowing the approaching end, My mind enters the saddest of my memories, and yet most clear in my mind.

_After the near miss on Appa, I knew it couldn't go on. I had to end it, before it was too late. It started to hurt me to be near him, but not with him. On the stairs of the palace, the war raging around us, I finally told him. We couldn't be together. I crushed his spirit in that moment and it seemed all I brought him in the end was pain. _

_When he stood up at the meeting, I felt for the first time the pain I had sowed so rashly. He was going on a suicide mission, and the life seemed to leave me. Tears started flowing and I knew at that moment what I always suspected since the bridge. I loved him._

I know what I have to do, it is the destiny prescribed for me the moment I was placed in the spirit pool. The general finally gathered the courage to say it, and Sokka reacted the way I thought he would. The wise say parting is sweet sorrow, but this sorrow only hurts.

"You don't have to do this."

Gentle, loving, caring and concerned as always. He doesn't understand my gift, my doom.. my destiny. I place my hands on the moon spirit's form and my life pours into it. I want to leave the memories behind, to leave the expression on his face out of the endless ages to come. But I didn't, even through all the pain and suffering I put us both through, I regret nothing.

I place one last kiss on his lips, a parting memory, the last one. It gives me the strength to leave, knowing the memories will never change. I will always cherish them, the memories of my last days, the memories of my one love and the short time we had together. It is all I have, through the endless ages. The memories under the starlight.

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End file.
